Shoulder to Cry On
by Moiranne Rose
Summary: Before/During the War: With the Wizarding waging War against Voldermort, the World waits for Harry to save them. But in small ways, they're helping each other through this dark time and lending shoulders to cry on.


**A/N: I was chatting with my friend over IM, and then she typed this line, My shoulder will be yours to cry on. Kinda sweet, huh? Well, I thought about how I could use this for a fanfiction. **

**And I decided, for the first time in my life, that I'd attempt a Harry Potter fanfiction. It's going to be chaptered, and about various characters before and during the War. All the side characters who don't get a say in the book? Yeah, this is for them.**

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**Title: Shoulder to Cry On**

**Summary: Before/During the War. With the Wizarding waging War against Voldermort, and families being torn apart day after day, the World waits for Harry to save them. But in small ways, they're helping each other through this dark time.**

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**Chapter 1**

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The moon seemed to hang drably in the darkening sky threatening rain. Ginny Weasley made her way down to the lake, to that secret patch that she'd always remember. Settling down on the grass, hardly caring about the mud that stained the back of her cloak.

So. So this was what it would be like for the next year. Her first night without Ron to fight with, Hermione to help her with her homework, without Harry to lie with her and talk about their day. That had been the routine, the perfected formula. Taking away three key factors left her with a negative answer.

She'd have to brave the horrors of Hogwarts, whatever would happen, listen during class time, do well and be happy about it? She laughed, acutely missing the look Harry would shoot her, the comprehension that it was not through amusement she laughed, but through sheer irony.

Harry James Potter, she swore to herself, once you get back, you will know what the King of Bat Bogey Hexes feels like. And it will not be pretty.

_If _you get back, she corrected herself, hardly feeling the tears that built up and trickled down her cheeks. She hardly heard the sneakers that padded the grass down and the subsequent appearance of a person next to her on the ground.

Shaking her silver-blonde, slightly bedraggled locks, Luna Lovegood sat down next to Ginny Weasley, her sort-of friend. Luna hadn't many friends, and of the ones that welcomed her presence, she only had people that she wasn't really sure were friends or not. Ginny was a sort-of friend, which wasn't as nice as if she were her best friend (she knew this only in theory), but she made do.

For the moment, her "sort-of friend" looked like she was deep in thought, and if she saw correctly in her eyes, she was sad too. Wistful sadness laced with some kind of devious plotting. And the muffled sound of crying. Ginny hadn't seemed to have noticed her presence, so she lifted a hand to pat Ginny's shoulder sympathetically.

Ginny wouldn't have jumped more if Luna had touched her with a burning coal. Her body turned to reveal a splotchy red face and tracks of tears. Her utter messed-up look was a far cry from her cold, almost austere expression during the day.

"Harry, is it?"

Ginny started slightly, but accepted the tissue that Luna offered and nodded while blowing her stuck nose.

"He left me here while he goes off traversing the world, which, I might add, is more fun that this mess!"

Luna looked at her with an oddly piercing, and _focused_ (Luna was hardly ever focused) face.

"But it's not just about fun, is it?"

Her question fell hard on Ginny's ears. It was true. It had nothing to do with fun. It had to do with him messing with her feelings, it had to do with him going away _without her_, and most of all, it had to do with what she needed to deal with without him. Luna's cold, pale hand provided an odd kind of comfort that she hadn't found in anyone else.

"I could lean on him!" She burst out hysterically, "I could talk to him, cry on him...Luna, I really miss him..." Her voice trailed off, she felt suddenly self-conscious.

"He will come back soon. I know he will."

For a moment, Ginny felt like laughing out loud. That sounded more like Luna. Her blind faith in her friends, her utter detachment from the whole world and its sorrows and perils. But there was a quiet conviction in her voice that made Ginny really, _really_ want to believe her.

"Until then," Luna's eyes softened as she half-lifted, half-led Ginny back to the doors of Hogwarts before Filch closed them.

"My shoulder will be yours to cry on."

And once she said that, she knew she had made a true friend at last.

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**A/N: My take on the War and how the people other than the Golden Trio cope with the crisis. My first Harry Potter fic, so be a bit nicer? hopeful smile  
**

**Moiranne Rose**


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